Vicki E. Alger, Ph.D.

Vicki E. Alger is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California, with a forthcoming book on the history of the U.S. Department of Education. She holds Senior Fellowships at the Fraser Institute, headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the Independent Women’s Forum in Washington, D.C. Alger is also President and CEO of Vicki Murray & Associates LLC in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Alger’s research focuses on education reforms that promote a competitive education marketplace and increase parents’ control over their children’s education. She is the author of more than 40 education policy studies, co-author of Lean Together: An Agenda for Smarter Government, Stronger Communities, and More Opportunities for Women, Short-Circuited: The Challenges Facing the Online Learning Revolution in California, and Not as Good as You Think: Why the Middle Class Needs School Choice, as well as Associate Producer of the documentary “Not as Good as You Think: Myth of the Middle Class School.”

Alger has advised the U.S. Department of Education on public school choice and higher education reform. She has also advised education policymakers in nearly forty states and England, provided expert testimony before state legislative education committees, and served on two national accountability task forces. Alger’s research helped advance four parental choice voucher and tax-credit scholarship programs in Arizona, as well as the state’s first higher education voucher, and she provided expert affidavits as part of the successful legal defense of educational choice programs for low-income, foster-care, and disabled children.

Alger’s research also inspired the introduction of the most school choice bills in California history—five in all—and her research was used as part of the successful legal defense by the Institute for Justice of the country’s first tax-credit scholarship program in the U.S. Supreme Court (Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn). Her research and commentary on education policy have been widely published and cited in leading public-policy outlets such as Harvard University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance, Education Week and the Chronicle of Higher Education, in addition to national news media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily, Forbes,Fortune, Human Events, La Opinión, the Los Angeles Times, and US News & World Report. She has also appeared on the Fox News Channel, Global News, local ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS affiliates, as well as news radio programs across the country.

Prior to her career in education policy, Alger taught college-level courses in American politics, English composition and rhetoric, and early British literature. She has lectured at numerous American universities, including the U.S. Military Academy, West Point. Alger received her Ph.D. in political philosophy from the Institute of Philosophic Studies at the University of Dallas, where she was an Earhart Foundation Fellow. Alger lives in Arizona with her husband David.

Site Search

Search for:

Follow Vicki

Vicki on Facebook

"[I]f her position is that Washington should not be involved in education she should state that with conviction, citation of the Constitution, and immediate reference to evidence of federal failure. ...Even believers in a strong federal role in education will admit that Washington only supplies around 10 percent of total K-12 funding. Isn’t it then a bit much to have an education secretary pronouncing that he or she knows best what all children need?" Neal McCluskeyIndependent InstituteIndependent Women's ForumStop Fed Ed National Campaign

Other than maybe the highly voluble William Bennett, Ronald Reagan’s second education chief (who still has a radio show), it is difficult to think of a U.S. Secretary of Education who has garnered as much attention as Betsy DeVos. But not in a good way. As exemplified by her much-lambasted intervi...

John Walker: California education policy is an unmitigated disaster, and when it’s over the blame will rest in the hands of the SBE led by Michael Kirst and the State Superintendent of Education Tom Torlakson. If the legislature cannot find the courage to act, they are just as much to blame.